The MikeCam » Events

letters to home: a little culture

Miquel Rodríguez Telep / Michael Rodríguez-Torrent — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 22:03:33 +0000

We arrived in Vienna by train this afternoon. The past couple days in Budapest we walked and saw more of the sights, including the House of Terror, a museum in the building which was first the headquarters of the Arrow Cross party (Hungarian Nazis) and subsequently the AVH, the secret police under communism. The museum is fairly new (2002) and quite slick, but seemed a bit thin on content at some points, focusing more on presentation. It was quite controversial when it opened, because a substantial sum was put into by the government, which opened it during the 2002 ministerial election campaign. It was seen as a political stunt by the incumbent Nationalist prime minister to discredit the Socialist party, his primary opponents, which includes many former Communist party members. He lost anyway, however.

Tuesday night, we attended an evening of Bartok (the famous Hungarian composer) at the State Opera house, an opera theatre with an incredibly lavish and ornate 19th century interior. Tickets were approximately $3.50 and the programme consisted of two ballets (The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin) followed by an operetta (Bluebeard’s Castle). The Wooden Prince was the best performance of the three and was what I’ve always imagined ballet should be; it was excellent. Speaking of ballet, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but for our last night in Bucharest we went to the opera as well, although it turned out to be a ballet performance. It was decent, but the performance wasn’t as classical as The Wooden Prince and didn’t quite work. Additionally, the theatre was entirely booked out — so they sold us tickets to sit on the stairs in the balcony! I think they cost roughly $1, but I couldn’t believe that they actually sold tickets for the stairs. Anyway, it’s been great to be able to see some high quality opera and ballet for dirt cheap. Wednesday night we tried to go see some jazz in Budapest, but the first place we went to was a boat on the Danube and was closed because of the high waters. The second place we had recommended to us we just plain couldn’t find, so that was a washout. Instead we went to a bar and relaxed for a little while, before walking a loooong ways home.

The train today was pretty interesting because we passed by a lot of remnants of the flooding. The Danube was back within its banks to our right, but to our left could be seen fields still covered in water. After finding our hostel and finding lunch this afternoon, Kody and Brian were tired from going to sleep late and getting up early, so we napped until 7 and then went out for dinner. I understand that they’re tired and that this is a vacation, so we should be able to rest, but I’m pretty annoyed that we’ve lost an entire day in Vienna — I have this one opportunity to see as much as I can and I’d rather sleep at night so I can make use of the day. Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing the couple Habsburg palaces in Vienna starting tomorrow, as well as the Freud museum. We’re also hoping to be able to see a classical music concert for about 5 euros and also hopefully the Vienna Boys Choir (who perform once a week on Sunday morning).

galavanting across europe

Miquel Rodríguez Telep / Michael Rodríguez-Torrent — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 02:06:19 +0000

I leave today for a month of travels across the breadth of the continent of Europe! We are fantastically lucky to have the month from March 24 – April 24 off for our Easter break while studying here at Leeds so I, along with two of my dorm neighbors from Irish C at ASU last year — Kody and Brian — are visiting eleven cities in nine countries over the course of 30 days. I’m particularly excited about our eastern European stops, such as Bucharest in Romania, as I anticipate them being rather different from what I’m used to in Western European culture.

Here’s my itinerary for the next month:
Mar. 24: Paris, France
Mar. 28: Barcelona, Spain
Mar. 31: Rome, Italy
Apr. 3: Florence, Italy
Apr. 5: Venice, Italy
Apr. 6: Bucharest, Romania
Apr. 10: Budapest, Hungary
Apr. 13: Vienna, Austria
Apr. 16: Prague, Czech. Republic
Apr. 19: Berlin, Germany
Apr. 22: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Apr. 24: Leeds, England (back at Bretton!)

holiday travels

Miquel Rodríguez Telep / Michael Rodríguez-Torrent — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 04:16:23 +0000

This morning I’m flying off to Barcelona, via London. I’ll arrive there tonight, stay until next Monday night (the 19th), fly to Paris for a few days, fly back to London, and catch another coach back to Leeds in time for Christmas! Unfortunately my new, replacement camera that was supposed to arrive Friday has still not arrived, so unless it magically turns up before my bus this morning I’m afraid there won’t be much in the way of photos. I’ll try and at least pick up a disposable, though.

See you all in a couple weeks!

new year’s in edinburgh

Miquel Rodríguez Telep / Michael Rodríguez-Torrent — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:55:08 +0000

I’ll be spending New Year’s in Edinburgh with a bunch of my friends from Bretton! One of them is Scottish and her brother owns a flat there, so we’re all going to stay for a couple nights and enjoy Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, as they call their New Year’s celebration. It’s supposed to be huge, and there’s a Catalan theme, so in general it should be pretty wicked!